The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

I enjoyed reading this novel. Although most of the action happens in the recent past (insofar as a psychologist's trips to talk to people to understand Robert Oliver, his patient and a skilled artist who attacks a canvas at the National Gallery and then refuses to talk constitues action), the real interest in this book, for me at least, was the story of Béatrice de Clerval, an Impressionist painter who cuts her career mysteriously short. Andrew Marlow, the psychiatrist who narrates the majority of the tale, wasn't entirely sympathetic to me, and I often felt that he was too self-absorbed, at cost to the interest of the rest of the story. Indeed, I'm not sure the set-up is ideal for the story that's being told. Still, I found the Impressionism story very good, as well as the stories told by the two women in Robert Oliver's life. Kostova handles the supense quite well, and the digging necessary to understand the story is quite pleasurable.

I heard Kostova read the Prologue and answer questions about this book. She spoke quite eloquently to the challenges of writing, both generally, and in writing about artists.